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19. View from the North ."
Global Change and Our Common Future: Papers from a Forum . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press,
1989 .

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19
VIEW FROM THE NORTH
Digby J. McLaren
This discussion does not represent the view from the North but
merely _ view from the North. ("North" in this title means Canada.)
Furthermore, although I am interested in and concerned about the ques-
tions of global change and Canada's part in the world program, I speak
officially for no government or organization within my country. I did
not have time to assess the official view, and indeed when I do know
what it is, I am not necessarily always in agreement with it.
I can, however, assure you that there is strong support from working
scientists for the research program on global change. Already a great
deal of good science is being carried out in a very large spectrum of
disciplines that might be considered grist to the program's mill. The
scientists that are already involved in such activities might not ne-
cessarily be aware of their contribution to the program, and there is a
huge job to be done in overcoming generations of traditional speciali-
zation in science disciplines. We are now required to learn how to
communicate broadly with people in other disciplines and indeed with
those in the social sciences and humanities, the decision makers, and,
more important than any other, the public. The Royal Society of Canada
was involved in the planning of a global change program from the incep-
tion of the idea, and it set up a research committee in 1985, which
subsequently organized working groups geographically and by discipline.
Canada early recognized the importance of collaboration with the "other
cultures" and unified all in one program, subdivided into two overlapping
parts--the human dimension and the scientific dimension.
In the world program, Canada has a double obligation. First, it is
the second largest country with the longest coastline and must therefore
play a major part in contributing to the whole. Plainly there must be a
major effort in the Arctic, a region particularly sensitive to change; in
agriculture, which is found only in a small southern strip currently
restricted by climate and whose future expansion is limited by geology;
in water and wetlands and their huge importance in moderating atmospheric
chemistry and the effects of northern climate as well as their sensi-
tivity to climate change; and many other ecological concerns. In the
oceans, Canada plays its part in the major international programs, e.g.,
the Ocean Drilling Program, the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, and
the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study. Second, as a "have's nation, Canada
has shown a strong interest in the Third World through existing
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organizations. Attention has been given to tropical rain forests and a
number of geographically important areas: Southeast Asia (Borneo, Thai-
land, Bangladesh, Nepal), Africa (southern Africa and the Sahel), and
Latin America (the Pacific coast of South America).
The most important aspect of the research program on global change is
that it is truly global and must involve all people on earth. To point
this up, Bill Fyfe has recently suggested that the developed countries,
because they are outnumbered four to one by the lesser-developed nations,
should pitch their level of effort to populated areas containing four
times as many people as their own population. Canada should, therefore,
accept responsibility for collaborating with about 100 million people, at
a minimum.
The Brundtland Commission has provided us with a baseline on which to
build. This hugely important work was the subject of two major meetings
in Canada, and the results were published as the Brundtland Challenge and
the Cost of Inaction involving scientists economists, moralists, and
, ,
politicians. Canadian granting councils and others are considering pro-
posals for major projects on economic, urban, agricultural, and other
dimensions of the social challenge of global change. The Brundtland
publication Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and
Development, Oxford University Press, London, 1987) coined the term
"sustainable development." The commission was content to link sustain-
ability with discipline and restraint but suggested that growth might
continue. While in no way critical of this classic work, I should like
to examine some aspects of sustainability.
o Sustainable for whom? It appears that our economic system empha-
sizes short-term profit as a benefit and does not put a real cost on the
resources we consume. There must be a price put on such commodities as
soils as well as ground water, surface waters, atmosphere, and the bio-
sphere--or the sum total of all kinds of life on earth. Current eco-
nomic thinking appears to be caught up in a system that assumes limit-
less resources and ignores the production of waste products. This
system worked when resources did appear to be limitless and when waste
was easily disposed of and self-cleansing. Neither of these qualities
exists any longer. The economic subsystem takes in resources and ex-
cretes waste and is thus irrevocably and closely linked to the ecosys-
tem. Input and output are finite, and the main variable is the one-way
flow of matter-energy. Such a way of looking at things raises the
question of how big the economic system should be in relation to the
physical dimensions of the global system. This also necessarily ques-
tions the concept of growth economics and the impossibility of general-
izing western standards to the world as a whole. Since one-quarter of
the world population uses most of the resources and produces most of the
waste, can we increase both in the other three-quarters? What are the
limits that must exist in every finite system?
o Sustainable until when? The population of the world has fluc-
tuated widely in the past, controlled by the harsh laws of the natural
environment--flood, famine, plague, and conquest--and it has remained
well below 1 billion until the Industrial Revolution. With the present
population at 5 billion, therefore, we may claim that this runaway growth

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is the direct result of the application of technology, primarily improved
food production and hygiene, and that it is not a product of the natural
environment. The increase in the present population is grossly unequal
geographically. The largest birth rates are still in underdeveloped
countries, but in regard to resource use and production of waste the
inequality is reversed and taken over by the developed world. Currently
we are adding 1 billion human beings every 11 years. There just is not
enough time for demographic theories of population stability, arising
from increased standards of living and education, to work. Recent global
projections suggest stabilization at 11 billion by the end of the next
century, which approximates the date when, at current rates of destruc-
tion, all forests will have been felled. How will all these people be
fed? Any global attack on the disequilibrium of earth's systems must
take these facts into account.
0 Sustainable energy. The present system of energy use faces an
inevitable change. The fossil fuels currently account for about 79 per-
cent of world usage of energy, and 72 percent of this is oil and gas.
Availability will dictate a reduction in the use of oil and gas, which do
not have an unlimited future. Coal represents at least 10 times the
stored energy of petroleum products. Burning coal also produces nearly
twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced as does natural
gas, along with a large number of highly undesirable other wastes. It
has been suggested that, if one-third of the total global coal resource
is used, the atmosphere may pass the point of no return and become
subject to a runaway greenhouse effect. The warming effect appears to
have started: How much shall we accept, bearing in mind the inevitable
change in climate and rise in sea level? When shall we make the change-
over? How shall we pay for it? Do we have the technology ready?
o Sustainable ecology. Humankind lives inside the environment and,
in spite of biblical license, cannot dominate the whole of life on earth.
We have heard how the biodiversity of the planet is being reduced by many
of our current agricultural and other exploitative practices, and we
appear to be entering a major extinction event. There have been many
major events in the past during which the planet lost 80 percent or even
up to 90 percent of the extant biomass at the time of the catastrophe.
Without going into the question of what causes such mass extinction
events, one can make certain observations from the past, which should
serve us today. Mass killings have been sudden, but this just means that
they cannot be resolved accurately at this distance in time. The current
extinction event may be as sudden as any of them. When the killing is
over, it takes a very long time to reestablish ecological equilibrium.
Certain major features of the ecology of the earth are reestablished with
difficulty, and new ecologies must be worked out by a long, slow process
of selection. Thus coral reefs have become extinct at many times in the
past, but their recovery has commonly taken as long as 10 million years.
Other animal groups have shown a similar pattern in the past.
This talk is not meant to be preaching doom, but I do not believe
that describing reality, or the best interpretation of what reality is
from the facts given to us, is undesirable. I am not a pessimist; I
believe that humankind will survive the present crisis, but it will not

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do so unless it faces the reality of what is going on in this small
planet. We cannot dominate life. We do not understand the intricacies
of earth ecology;
court disaster.
Perhaps a way may be found to judge our actions by a new principle:
the health of the planet. The economy could be seen as being within the
environment and not the environment as being within the economy. Perhaps
we should ask the question of any action that we take, Does it increase
or decrease survivability? The term "quality of life" might take on a
new meaning. We could try to limit our own needs with a consciousness of
the global resource and global needs in the broadest terms. We could
live in balance with all life but could crop and harvest according to
preference and needs, providing that these do not reduce the capacity of
future generations to do so also.
In a similar way, we may look on sovereignty in a different light.
We may assume a common cause with all people on earth against a common
enemy--action that threatens balance within our environment or reduces
our legacy for future generations. Somehow a way must be found to permit
us to look for one brief moment at the world without the filters of be-
lief, axiom, or political theory. In this moment we could observe the
planet and draw conclusions from our observations as to the health of
our habitat and assess the probability that life may be self-sustaining
indefinitely into the future. Sustainability is the ultimate criterion
by which we must measure our behavior and influence the presuppositions
that lie behind all our beliefs.
to pretend that we do and to act accordingly are to
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